Title: Atman – The Light of all Lights

15th Chapter: Verses 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

10th verse: “In this body, there are physical senses. There is a perceiver who uses these senses to perceive sense objects. Those who are deluded equate that perceiver to the body-mind complex. Those who are enlightened see him as separate and as the real perceiver.”

Those who identify with the physical body continue with the transmigratory cycle of birth, old age, death and rebirth. The 10th verse should be understood in the context of the law of karma and the law of incarnation. According to the law of karma, our actions produce two types of results – one that is visible and immediate, another that is invisible. For example, if we help a person, the other person benefits (visible result). But we ourselves feel “I did something sensible” – this is the invisible result, which is stored in our Antahkarana as samskara. We collect these tendencies in our Antahkarana through actions involving the senses and the mind. We are born with the baggage of past samskaras (tendencies) – we cannot disown them.

There are two ways of looking upon our experiences. The first is a worldly view where we think: “I (body-mind-complex) is doing this.” Second, a spiritually evolved view, where we think: “There is something within me for whom this body-mind-complex is an instrument.” The soul continues its transmigratory cycle until the wrong notion is gone.Those who are enlightened understand that the soul (the primary and the owner) has a body. Those who are not enlightened, their understanding is that the body (the primary and the owner) has a soul.

11th verse: “Those who are not endowed with the power of discerning wisdom identify with the physical body and empirical experiences. They enjoy and suffer. They deceive themselves by wanting a continuing succession of happy experiences. Those endowed with spiritual wisdom look upon happiness and unhappiness with the same equanimity of mind.

”We cannot have continuous happiness. For example, when our profits go down, we compare to the previous profit level and become unhappy – so decreasing happiness can make us unhappy. The way to be happy is to stop the pursuit of happiness all the time.

12th verse: “There is one all-pervading, immanent, omnipresent and supreme reality which is the Atman. This Atman is the divine light that is present in every being. The light that is in the sun, in the moon and in the fire – that light is nothing but the light of the Atman.”

Everything - living beings and non-living things such as stones - are all pervaded by this light. Living beings have an antahkarana which acts as the reflecting medium for this light to manifest. Non-living things do not have an antahkarana.

By doing good actions, we can manifest this light. The degree of manifestation of this eternal reality depends on the purity of the person’s mind. Swami Vivekananda said that the difference between an amoeba and a Buddha is only of degrees, not of kind. Buddha is like the clean mirror, in whom the presence of the lord manifests in His full effulgence.

The 12th verse compares this divine presence to light. The idea of light comes from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad where King Janaka asked Sage Yajnavalkya: “Endowed with what light does a person live in this world”. The first answer was sunlight. As each option provided in previous answers was eliminated, subsequent answers were moonlight, agni, and sound. When all four of these options were eliminated, the final answer was Atma-Jyoti, which is in all of us and that is self-revealing. It is the light of all lights - that enables all other lights, such as sunlight, moonlight, agni to function.

Lord Krishna says: “This light comes from Me.” “Me” here does not refer to Lord Krishna as a human being. It refers to Atman. A person becomes spiritually enlightened when this light manifests in its full effulgence. This is what happened to Buddha. In his journey, 543 previous life cycles were replayed – he de-identified with all life cycles. He realized his real essence is the Atman.

13th verse: “This light, which enters the earth, enlivens everything.”

When we sow a seed in fertile soil, it sprouts, then becomes a plant and then a tree. It is the gradual evolution of this light which is already present in the seed.

14th verse: “It is this light that resides in every being, eats and digests the food, and nourishes the body.”

15th verse: “This light is present as the indweller in every living being in this world. It manifests as memory, knowledge, ignorance and forgetfulness.”

Everything in this world – good, bad, indifference – all come from the same source, this divine light. Just as electricity manifests in different ways depending on the gadget it powers, similarly, everything in this world is a different manifestation of the same divine light.

The human body should be cared for – it acts as an instrument to undertake spiritual practices, manifest this light, and take us beyond the body.